The Rogue's GalleryWednesday, November 11, 20091:59PM - Petition to Senator Reid in Opposition to Stupak Amendment( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) 3:41PM - A deathmarch without dancing...
Current mood: stressedCurrent music: :Wumpscut: - Tomb 4:31PM - physical achievement updatesI had an awesome climbing session last week in which I climbed 4 5.9s and a 5.8+ (which is about a mid-level climb, for those of you who don't climb at a gym). So I was feeling really proud of myself, since this is mad progress for me, until THIS week, when I climbed my first 5.10! Granted it was just a 5.10a, but I feel really awesome for making it up that wall all the same. 2:30PM - any sufficiently advanced nazi is indistinguishable from an internet kerfuffleannnnnnnnnnnd I have now loafed the bread and set it to rise, roasted tomatillos and onions and chilis and garlic to make green chili to freeze, made and consumed ANOTHER pot of tea... Current mood: awesomeCurrent music: Morning Edition 2:23PM - Realms of Fantasy: Yearly SummaryOver on his blog, Rich Horton has posted his yearly summary of Realms of Fantasy. 2:04PM - Twitterated
1:47PM - It makes you wonder what's going past my office, every day!A train came past, a little while ago, led by five (!!!) engines. 12:35PM - in your underwear typing
Current mood: amused Current music: MC Frontalot - It Is Pitch Dark 11:37AMBeing reminded as I tap away this morning that some vast percentage of constructing a narrative is getting the transitions in the right places (even on a paragraph and sentence level) and the narrative energy and line of direction flowing. Getting the horses pulling in the right direction is only half of it. There have to be traces connecting them to the thing to be pulled. Current mood: busy11:15AM - may their peace be deepThank you, to everyone who is or has served in the armed forces. I wish you well, and I wish for a day when you can all go home and raise cabbages. “I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. --Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut, 1973 Current mood: thoughtfulCurrent music: John Gorka - Let Them In, Peter 2:21PM - The Murder Re-Enactedposted by Neil
The Graveyard Book just won a literary award, which never gets old, and this one came with a medal, and also with a cheque. I thought, Hm. I have to get myself something with the cheque and I have to do it immediately, otherwise it will simply vanish into the day to day bank account of life, and I will never look at anything and go "Ah, that is the thing I got with my Graveyard Book Award." So I bought this. It's "The Murder Re-Enacted": It's an E. H. Shepard illustration (he's most famous for illustrating Winnie the Pooh) from Kenneth Grahame's book The Golden Age. Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind In The Willows, the story of Mole and Rat and Badger and of course, Mr Toad, also illustrated by Shepard. I once read an essay by A.A. Milne telling people that, of course they knew Kenneth Grahame's work, he wrote The Golden Age and Dream Days, everybody had read them, but he also did this amazing book called The Wind in the Willows that nobody had ever heard of. And then Milne wrote a play called Toad of Toad Hall, which was a big hit and made The Wind in The Willows famous and read, and, eventually, one of the good classics (being a book that people continue to read and remember with pleasure), while The Golden Age and Dream Days, Grahame's beautiful, gentle tales of Victorian childhood, are long forgotten. If there is a moral, or a lesson to be learned from all this, I do not know what it is. Right. Off to K.N.O.W. St Paul to record the intro bits to my NPR piece on Audio Books, and I will play the Martin Jarvis-read GOOD OMENS on the car CD player all the way there.
7:43AM - we bad.So far today I have:
It's 7:35. I am about to yoga, shower, dress, put my wrist braces on and write at least six pages. I think I may need to sleep all afternoon, or the virtue around here just might rise to toxic levels. Or possibly that was all a catwax of epic proportions. ...but the cats are so shiny now. And if I hadn't made bread there would be nothing for supper! Current mood: accomplishedCurrent music: big dog sighs 12:57AM - Whimper the third2100 words today, leaving me with a -1100 deficit from yesterday and Sunday, but still reasonably on track. My latest sticking point is trying to make up and describe dances, because renaissance dances just aren't doing it for me. Current mood: tired12:39AM - Gone fishing(not really, but going to Florida to see the folks, where it's still summer but the internet connection (dial up) sucks. So no messages please. Back online the 18th.) 12:02AM - tweets, twits, and bullet points from the collective unconscious( My Daily Tweets ) Tuesday, November 10, 200911:32PMI decided to hurl myself off overhangs today, on the theory that if I not getting lighter, I had bloody better well start getting stronger. So, two attempts at a 5.8 on the 45-foot wall (second time I made about 30 feet of it, but you know, the damned thing is so overhung that when you come off you don't get back on) and then I sent an overhung 5.7 I've done before. As a reward, I decided I was going to do something I had never tried, which I thought was probably too hard for me. A 5.8 in the front corner, with a little roof over it. Current mood: embarrassed10:45PMWhile I was melting butter for the muffins (Chaz's blueberry muffin recipe, modified for orange-cranberry-walnut whole wheat muffins (1) (2)) the microwave attempted to immolate itself. (1)If it's good with orange extract, it will be REALLY good with orange extract, Cointreau, orange juice, and bitter orange peel. Right? (2) Yuppie wand blender is good for pulverising the cranberries into the yogurt. I thought they would be a bit much, whole. Current mood: radioactive9:44PM - hard SF watch: EarthlightI just checked out and read the first two volumes of Earthlight, a manga-format comic by Stuart Moore. I liked it... one reviewer called it a mix of teen drama and space action SF, which seems right, and thought it was too fast and heavy on the action, which I can see. The year is 2068, the place is the Earthlight colony on the Moon, whose main function is supporting (and presumably building) power satellites. Panels on the Moon collect power, beam it to satellites, which focus it for beaming to Earth -- which needs 25 terawatts of electricity (today: 1.5 TW) but still has lots of social divisions: "7 billion in poverty", England decaying, Russia and China not places to be. Launch costs aren't mentioned, hopefully much lower. Politics are big: the colony is supported by a 54-country coalition, with many countries being happy to sneak out of paying. "Enburton Corporation" gets mentioned briefly, as a source of new funding. I got a faint whiff of libertarianism early on but it seems to have dispersed; right now I'd call the politics on the grim side of realistic, with no perceivable authorial bias. Well, maybe liberal, given Enburton and what it'll do. 5:03PM - links* Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Whatever fame discovers the feminist and environmentalist joys of cities. James is reading through Whole Earth Discipline with comments. 4:13PM - In which our celebration is predictably short-lived...Yes, that's right... Navigate: (Previous 20 friends) |

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